Hitwise Says Search Frustrate Users
March 29, 2009
Hitwise is a Web consultancy. Web consultancies with analytics get a double boost. Hitwise has big ideas and data to make most assertions have the ring of truth. These were the thoughts that went through my goosely brain when I read Australian IT’s “Searches Frustrate Surfers” here.
The main point of this article was:
According to Mr Tancer {Hitwise executive], people were using more and more words in their search queries because they were dissatisfied with the results. He said one of the problems facing search engines was the amount of content that did not have a link pointing to it — the method Google and others use to find and rank sites.
I agree. Search is difficult, complicated, and deeply dissatisfying. The issue is, “What’s the fix?” The GOOG is on the search without search track. Microsoft is investing in a down economy. Yahoo is a beached whale. We know the problem. Any suggestions from the consulting or data side of the Hitwise house?
I don’t have too many problems with search, so the addled goose is not a good judge of such matters derived from statistical estimates of traffic. On system accounts for about two thirds or more of search traffic, so it must be doing something semi-right in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, March 29, 2009
Comments
2 Responses to “Hitwise Says Search Frustrate Users”
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People is part of the problem I believe. As people tries to ask more of the search engines (which according to the stats they are), they need to be more skilled in the use of search technologies.
Are they using the right operators? are they using the right search engines? do they understand basic search strategies?
Just like we don’t ask cars to drive us around automatically (not yet anyway) and we have to learn to drive, so do we all need to learn how to search as we demand more from search.
Search1x.com,
I think search without search will be more important going forward. “Regular” search is not the average Joe’s cup of Java.
Stephen Arnold, April 15, 2009